IEC 61131-3 & Multi platform portability
IEC 61131-3 & Multi platform portability
(OP)
The company I work for provides furnaces and control products for the heat treating industry. Because we provide products worldwide and for many different clients we have to work with a bunch of different PLC platforms. This is a new situation for me, before this job I have never programmed the same application twice so this issue has never come up.
With the majority of PLC comapnnies now supporting the IEC 61131-3 programming standard, how portable are configurations? Can I export my POUs between platforms? I know I will likely have to remap the I/O and possibly rework the memory configuration, but I'm more so looking for reusing major operation blocks.
With the majority of PLC comapnnies now supporting the IEC 61131-3 programming standard, how portable are configurations? Can I export my POUs between platforms? I know I will likely have to remap the I/O and possibly rework the memory configuration, but I'm more so looking for reusing major operation blocks.





RE: IEC 61131-3 & Multi platform portability
There are some 1131/3 based packages such as ISaGRAF, ControlBuild and Codesys that can compile to more than one manufacturers PLC. I have no direct experience of them, but I suspect, based on earlier experience that they generate the code to lowest common denominator. And further that the support for online changes is diminished by this approach.
A better answer imho is to standarise your design, using 1131/3 concepts. If you have a good design the actual programming becomes simpler.
In fact, shameless plug, that is what ControlDraw is for.
Francis
www.controldraw.co.uk
RE: IEC 61131-3 & Multi platform portability
RE: IEC 61131-3 & Multi platform portability
But a lot of them still are locked in there own world whether or not they say they are IEC compliant.
RE: IEC 61131-3 & Multi platform portability